To the believer, the gospels are far more than historical documents. They act as a catalyst that transforms a person, like water into wine. Software engineers have a term for a secret code written in a piece of software; they call it an “Easter Egg”. When...

It is easy to see when two texts are linked. It is much harder to determine which of the two came first. However, if one source is a metaphor and the other a literal miracle story, I think we can be confident that the metaphor came first. Recently, while working on my...

The genealogy in Matthew, like that in Luke, is really a genealogy of Joseph who, according to Matthew, is not even the real father of Jesus. Moreover, there is nothing about this Joseph in Mark. Even if Joseph is only Jesus’ father-in-law through his marriage...